I have only just realised that as an artist I should be registering in the CAL database (and possibly all my paintings!) so I thought I would pass this article on. Registration is easy on a poorly designed form.

Jeremy

Australia’s Art Resale Royalty comes into effect

Written by Artabase on Thursday, June 10, 2010 | Permalink

Australia’s new art resale royalty scheme comes into effect today, and last night at 8:16pm the appointed administrator, Copyright Agency Limited, finally sent out an email letting the art industry know what the administrative requirements would be.

If that’s not poor management of a scheme, I don’t know what is. This is not lay blame on CAL – the original Government Tender only ever allocated a few short weeks to have the website, and a public education campaign designed and delivered. The planning of this program has been of questionable quality from the get-go.

None the less, its here now and certain legal obligations must be met by people buying or selling art in Australia.

To summarise, all resales of artworks from today onwards must be reported to CAL within 90 days.

Certain resales of $1,000 or more will incur the payment of a 5% royalty, but this will not apply to the first change of ownership after 8 June, even if that is a resale. Furthermore:

it applies to resales of existing as well as new works;
it applies to a range of original artworks, included limited edition prints authorised by the artist;
it does not apply to a private sale from one individual to another;
a royalty is not payable on the first change of hands after 9 June, but all resales must be reported;
a royalty is not payable on resales for under $1,000;
the scheme will be extended to artworks from countries that have similar schemes.

Artists, beneficiaries and dealers are advised to register with CAL. Registrations can be conducted quickly online.

The following detailed fact sheets are available from the Resale Royalty website

http://www.resaleroyalty.org.au/

Jeremy Holton